


The Best-Laid Plans

by Lirillith



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Established Relationship, F/M, Genderswap, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tetsuko and Barnaby don't normally make much of Valentine's Day, but on impulse, Tetsuko decides to change that.  It doesn't work out quite the way she hoped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best-Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> De-anon from the T&B Anon Meme.

"So, Barnaby," the radio host began. "Valentine's Day is coming up. You've indicated in the past that you have someone special; is that still the case?"

"It is," Barnaby said. Not a glance at Tetsuko. She always wondered if he had to remind himself every time the way she did. She'd never gotten around to asking. "For obvious reasons, I'd like to keep her identity private, but we're still together."

"Any special plans for Valentine's Day?"

"I certainly can't answer that," he said. "I'd spoil the surprise." The host laughed, and Tetsuko obediently laughed too. "It will probably be a pretty low-key event, though. Something at home."

"And what about you, Tigress? Are you seeing anyone?"

 _Don't look at him._ "You could say that, yeah. We've been together a while."

"And do you have any romantic getaways or dinners for two planned?"

"Nah, we keep it pretty low-key, always have. It's so crowded everywhere on Valentine's anyway. Who needs that? It's more romantic to do something out of the blue than on the day everyone's expected to be romantic, right?"

"Very true," Barnaby agreed. "But if everyone's expected to be romantic on Valentine's Day, isn't it best to at least meet expectations?"

"When I meet expectations things blow up," Tetsuko said, then paused for the laughter. "Sometimes it's good to be unpredictable, or even let folks down, as long as you make up for it some other way."

"I try never to let my girlfriend down," Barnaby said.

 _Are we arguing? Awesome._ She could never tell. This, she'd have to ask about in the car. The host broke in to say, "You two have been partners for some time. Does your closeness cause any problems in your relationships?"

 _Whoa Nellie._ These morning shows were supposed to be softball questions! "Nah," she said. "My man knows how I feel about him." 

"I do my best to make it clear that I value Te--" he cleared his throat -- "Tigress as my partner, and my girlfriend as the woman I love. I can't read minds, but it's never been a source of open confusion or conflict." 

But he'd nearly slipped up there. The part of her that never got over competing with the smartass kid foisted upon her crowed at that. Still, good answer. 

"The two of you have maintained your partnership through all kinds of ups and downs. Can you give us any idea what's ahead for Tigress and Barnaby?" 

* * *

Once they were in the car with the door closed, they both spoke at once. "Sorry about my slip back there," he said, just as she asked "Were we having an argument?" They both laughed, then hesitated a moment. He beat her to it: "You first."

"Were we arguing back there, about expectations and letting people down and stuff? I couldn't tell for sure."

"Only slightly. I hope I don't let you down." He started the car, but left it in park, watching for her response.

"Nah," she said. "You're great, Bunny, you know that."

"But maybe a bit predictable."

She shook her head. "I got no complaints, and you know it." 

"Except about the furniture," he said, backing the car out of its space. "And the way I load the dishwasher. And how long I spend on my hair."

"Those don't count. And what were you going to say? About nearly calling me Tetsuko? That's no big deal, don't worry about it."

"If it's no big deal, why do you put your mask on every time we go out?" He signaled to turn out of the parking garage. "I hope you don't mind that I have this pretense of being more romantic for Valentine's than we really are."

"Oh, it's killin' me," she said. "You act like you're going to whisk me off for a weekend in Paris but I know all I _really_ have to look forward to on Valentine's is a nice evening at home and having sex with a gorgeous younger man who's crazy about me. My life is so hard."

"Constant suffering," he agreed. "If you're sure. I just feel a little guilty hinting at some elaborate romantic surprise right in front of you, when--"

"Nah, it's fine. It's the image," she said. "And you know me. I couldn't be romantic if my life depended on it. It's cool, Bunny. We'll fire up the fondue set and I'll get a bottle of wine. I wasn't kidding, I hate the crowds." 

"We have a fondue set?"

"Apparently! I found it last week when I was hunting for the crockpot. A waffle iron, too. I figured they were yours."

* * *

Back at home that night, Tetsuko took over the computer. Allegedly she was shopping for stuff for Kaede's room -- Kaede was going to move in with them once the school year was over -- but once Bunny was settled down with a book, she opened up another tab for Valentine's searches. Not that there were a whole lot of ideas that she didn't know about. Candy, flowers, sexy lingerie. 

The thing was, Bunny didn't really have that much of a sweet tooth, and he didn't really care about flowers, and in bed, he totally lived up to his name. They had sex all the time, and he'd shown no sign at all of getting bored with her, wanting variety or whatever reason those gross magazines at the supermarket checkout gave you to wear lingerie. They usually had sex either because one of them had just outright said "let's have sex," or because she'd taken her shirt off in front of him. There really wasn't much point to paying for a special outfit to seduce him. Hell, there wasn't much point to wearing matching bra-and-panty sets. 

But just because he didn't _need_ more seduction than her being in her underwear didn't mean he wouldn't kind of enjoy more. She was the first woman he'd ever slept with; he might not actually realize women did stuff like lingerie outside of porn. Obviously she needed to introduce him to the wonderful world of overpriced sexy underwear! He'd like it no matter what, because he liked anything that was at all close to her being naked, and she knew she could be extra-hot in the right outfit. And because they didn't have anything like this planned at all, it'd be a total surprise.

Well, probably. She'd have to check their schedules once they were at the office, so she didn't have to pull off the surprise by running off to the bedroom for absolutely no reason and then demanding he come take a look. But it usually worked out to where he was busy a little longer than she was, so she could go home before he did, and be all dolled up when he got home.

Of course, Valentine's was just a couple days away. She couldn't order anything online. Even if it arrived in time, Bunny might open it up. But she could do some early recon first. Babydolls and teddies and corsets and merry widows -- there was a name that struck a little too close to home -- and it all looked about like it always had. And it was all in pink and red, because it was Valentine's Day. She should have done this back around Christmas, get herself something green. Bunny swore up and down his thing about red clothes was just coincidental, but she knew what she liked and what looked good on her. Pink wasn't it.

Pink and red, black lace and leopard print. Why not tigers? You never heard about someone being a _leopard_ in the sack. But there was no tiger print anywhere. Then a horrible thought struck her; she searched cougars to make sure they didn't look anything like leopards.

Okay, no spots. They were like mountain lions. That was safe, then. But she was a tigress, so she wasn't about to wear leopard print. Maybe there'd be tiger stripes in the store. 

* * *

That was Monday. Tuesday, they had pretty separate schedules, she knew in advance -- Bunny had a morning show appearance that didn't involve her, promoting the documentary he'd produced about Maverick and Hero TV, so Tetsuko would be taking her own car to work. They'd probably meet up at the training center, since they both usually went in at around the same times without even trying, but she could always run off instead, do some lingerie shopping, and pass it off as something else. Maybe she'd say she'd gone to get more paint samples for Kaede's room, which would guarantee he wouldn't want to know a thing about it. He could be really fussy about interior design but for some reason he hated talking paint colors. Probably because all the ones she picked out were too light and non-gloomy. 

She was enthusiastic enough about her plan that she actually powered through her paperwork at a reasonably brisk clip and even finished before noon. Bunny had come in around ten, after following the morning show with a breakfast interview, and she'd actually beaten him to the finish line for once. She threw her arms up in the air like she'd just scored a winning goal at something. Nancy and Bunny both rolled their eyes. 

"What?" she addressed the room at large. "This doesn't happen often!"

"I _know,_ " Nancy said darkly. "I think it's a sign of the apocalypse."

"Are you sure you didn't miss any pages?" Barnaby asked. 

"I'm not gonna let you guys ruin my buzz," she said. "I'm headin' out. I got some paint chips calling my name."

"Oh god," Barnaby muttered under his breath. She grinned to herself. 

"Just don't eat them," Nancy said. Tetsuko decided to act her age by sticking out her tongue before she took off.

Maybe there were fancier, more expensive places to buy lingerie, but Tetsuko knew where she was comfortable, so she headed for the Gloria's Secret in the nearest mall. She knew she wanted a garter belt, because those were sexy. She knew she wanted something that made her boobs look even better than they already did. Fancy panties to match, probably a thong or something. As for the details, she'd find out at the store. 

* * *

Turned out, though, that shopping for lingerie solo was a little more intimidating, or maybe embarrassing, than she'd remembered. If she was just after bras and panties, no big deal, but she was looking at the sexy stuff, and she kept wanting to have somebody there to giggle with about the crotchless panties (they didn't have _those_ on the website!) or the teddy without any actual cups, just the underwires. She should have brought Nathan for that purpose, but Nathan would have had some fancy-schmancy place he'd take her to instead where all the sexy lingerie was woven out of the hair of princesses or something, ,and then she'd walk out several thousand dollars poorer instead of a couple hundred max. 

Tetsuko hated the _name_ babydoll, and she didn't think the look was exactly her style, all ruffles and bows. But teddies were sometimes kind of uncomfortable, itchy or tight, and it wasn't like Bunny would know the name of whatever she was wearing. She found a sheer babydoll nightie that'd do what she wanted -- accentuate her boobs, partly cover up some of the areas of her body she wasn't as happy about (stretch marks, the C-section scar from when Kaede was born, and one of the scars from when Jake kicked her ass) and a garter belt to match. Plus the dark red color looked pretty good on her. Success! Not that she could brag about it to Bunny just yet. And Antonio had made her swear she was never going to talk about her sex life with him ever again. Wuss. 

She was feeling pretty proud of herself, all in all. Then she went home to hide her haul, only to realize she'd forgotten stockings. That could be fixed, but it threw her way off schedule, so she only did about half the training session she usually did, and Bunny was teasing her about being a slacker. "At least I got my paperwork done early" wasn't much of a response to that. 

Plus she'd had to stash the stockings in her locker at the training center, which made sneaking them out again kind of a challenge; she ended up hiding them inside her coat and feeling like she looked shifty as hell as she made her way to her car again, like a flasher or someone selling stolen goods. 

But once that was done it was smooth sailing. Bunny had a hair appointment, so she had the house to herself for a bit and she was able to hide all the lingerie. She started some fried rice -- yeah, she could cook other things, but they had leftover rice from Bunny's attempt at sushi rolls the other day -- and put on some reggae, since Bunny wasn't around to object to having it so loud. She had a Valentine's plan. She was going to surprise the hell out of Bunny. She was the best girlfriend _ever._

* * *

She was such a good girlfriend that it occurred to her the next day that she could ramp up the romantic-ness of this whole thing even more. Romance, ramp up the romance, that was it. She'd get a bottle of wine like she'd said before -- some kind of sweet rose, not champagne -- and something else. Chocolate-covered strawberries? Or maybe just chocolates in general. Truffles. Nice melty truffles that'd leave them with some chocolate to lick off each other's fingers. Oh, but she was going to use the fondue-pot-of-mysterious-origins, wasn't she? Hmm. 

Her paperwork took longer than ever on Wednesday, this time because she was looking up fondue online. "Balance is restored," Nancy said as she left the office for lunch, leaving Tetsuko as the last person there. Tetsuko sneered at her, but it was true, she needed to get her ass in gear, if she still had shopping to do on top of the usual training, food, errands, and then back to celeb stuff with a late-show appearance with Bunny. 

And with everything else on her plate, she nearly forgot it was a call-Kaede night until her phone rang as she and Bunny were juggling burgers in his car. She remembered, and cursed, just before she picked up. "Mom, what happened?" Kaede demanded. "There wasn't anything on TV!"

"Kaede! I'm sorry, honey, I was thinking it was Tuesday somehow! We're gonna be on TV, though. If we were going back to the house I'd have paint chips to show you--"

"Mom, that never works. The screen's too low-res to give me any idea what they're really like anyway."

"I keep telling her that," Barnaby put in. "She never remembers."

"Is that why you never wanna talk about 'em?" Tetsuko said to Bunny. He rolled his eyes with a smile. "So you'll see them when you come here for spring break instead," she said to Kaede. "It all works out. Can I call you tomorrow?"

"Won't you guys be doing something couple-y? It's Valentine's." 

_Hopefully._ "A little. We're not making a huge deal of it. It's not like we have plans to sit for twelve hours staring into each other's eyes."

"It'd ruin your eyesight if you tried," Barnaby said. "Looking the wrong way through my glasses?" 

"Better than looking the right way..." 

"Call me on Saturday," Kaede said. The screen was not too low-res for Tetsuko to see the eye-roll. Her baby girl was growing up; she was already smarter than her resident adults. 

* * *

Thursday. It was supposed to be a light day. Aside from desk work, there'd be a benefit performance in the park, another appearance at a nursing home, handing out flowers and kisses on the cheek to elderly fans, and then a mostly-free afternoon dedicated to training. Then a joint photoshoot for merch or cards or something, Tetsuko didn't remember, and Bunny had a magazine photoshoot that evening. Tetsuko was going to spend that time getting things ready at the house, puttering around in her lingerie like a softcore porn version of a fifties housewife -- should she wear heels? Maybe she should have some handy to step into when he got home -- and then wait for him to arrive. 

That morning, he greeted her with a velvet-covered box of chocolates, and she gave him a box of chocolate-covered strawberries -- which were no big secret, she'd put them in the fridge late the night before -- and they made out for a little while before she noticed the time and had to get dressed. The benefit performance was no big deal, another set of hired goons set up for them to knock down, and a couple of lucky semi-volunteers got to be taken "hostage" and then rescued. Tetsuko would have sworn she recognized the chick with the scarf, but she couldn't place her. 

The nursing home visit was mostly a photo opp, though one old man who looked about ninety tried to smack Tetsuko's ass. And because the old fart _did_ look about 90, Tetsuko had to laugh it off when she wanted to drop-kick him into next week. A couple of the old ladies joked about wanting a Bunny for their birthdays, but if any of them got gropey she didn't see it. Of course, Bunny hadn't seen her encounter, either, though he didn't doubt her and seemed sympathetic enough when she told him about it. 

_Tonight will be awesome,_ she kept telling herself. _Tonight will be awesome._

At the training center, she found a little be-ribboned packet of chocolate kisses in her locker from Blue Rose, a foil-wrapped chocolate in the shape of a rose from Ms. Violet, and a cute card from Dragon Kid; in the break room, Nathan had distributed gorgeously-packaged chocolates for everyone -- from Edesia, a Gold Stage place where Bunny had bought her chocolates on their first Valentine's together, the one where they decided they were officially together -- Antonio had left her a Snickers bar, a joke that went back to high school, and Ivan had given her white chocolate. It was a Japanese thing somehow, she just knew it, but she had to look it up on her phone to refresh her memory. There were also help-yourself boxes courtesy of Sumo Thunder and Bomberman. Keith's must have either been so delicious they'd already been picked over, or he hadn't shown up yet. 

She took it upon herself to distribute the candies from her and Bunny: white and dark chocolates, one of each for everybody. She'd just finished when she got a call from Kaede, and ran out to the break room to take it. "Is something wrong, Kaede?" she asked. "I'm really sorry I forgot last night. I've been on the run all week so far--"

"No, _I'm_ fine. Mom, you and Barnaby should do something special for Valentine's Day."

Her daughter was giving her relationship advice. Did that make her a horrible parent? "We are, honey. Part of the reason I've been busy is that I've been buying stuff on the sly and not telling him."

"What kind of stuff?"

She wasn't _that_ bad a parent, at least. "Chocolates and things. Gifts. Was that all you were worried about?" 

"Pretty much, yeah. I mean, when I move in I hope you guys aren't grossing me out with PDA all the time, so I want you to get it out of your systems now."

Yeah, having Kaede live with them meant a lot less running around in underwear. She'd been trying to get Bunny used to the idea of pajamas but he was resisting mightily. "Don't worry, Kaede. We'll behave." _Hopefully,_ she added mentally.

They ate in their transport -- Lloyds had gotten them paninis, pretty good ones, so they didn't have to deal with crowds. Back into their suits, then posing and catch-phrasing and watching Bunny doing his hair-tosses and mini-salutes and being told how much the camera loved him. She, meanwhile, couldn't give a thumbs-up to the photographer's satisfaction. "It's just not very dynamic," the photographer said sadly. 

"Dynamic? I can do dynamic."

"Tetsuko, don't--" Bunny began, but she'd already powered up. He sighed, hand to his forehead, but she and the photographer were having a _moment_ here, his camera doing its digital version of a shutter sound nonstop while she posed and flexed and winked and blew kisses. "Perfect," the photographer kept saying, "Beautiful, now more to the right? Yes! And the left! Okay, now more pouty." She had no idea if she managed "more pouty," but he sounded happy and no one was grumpy at her except Bunny.

"What if we get a call?" he asked, as they were undressing in the transport. They still had a partition in place from the earliest days of their partnership, because neither of them cared to explain to Saito that seeing each other naked was fine now, but it had never blocked sound. 

"So I'll go out without powers! I've done it before. It made for good photos, right? You're the one who's always saying the media stuff is important." 

"True, but not at the expense of our real job..." He trailed off. "When did you take control of my mind?"

She smiled at the wall, in his general direction. "It's been since before we went on hiatus, Bunny. You just now noticed?"

They went their separate ways from the transport, Bunny for his solo photoshoot, while Tetsuko drove home, humming to herself happily. It was good to get a plan into action before she'd picked it to death. The real question was where in the house to wait. Greet him at the door in lingerie and heels? Scatter rose petals around the house in a trail leading to the bedroom, and wait on the bed? Where did you find just random rose petals that weren't part of a rose? Buying a rose just to reduce it to petals seemed a little expensive, not to mention time-consuming. Hadn't she known this kind of thing once? Back when they were planning the wedding. Ugh, even if she found them they'd be overpriced right now because it was Valentine's Day. No rose petals. 

Okay, she had an idea. She'd wait on the couch -- partly to demonstrate to Bunny that couches were good things to have, way more conducive to sex than armchairs-for-one -- with the bottle of wine chilling in an ice bucket and the chocolates on an end table. Of course, you couldn't just race across the apartment and fling yourself into a sexy lounge, so she'd have to get into position and wait till he got home. Good thing they had a TV that was Bunny's idea of reasonably-sized and her idea of "the size of a small country." She could find something to watch while she waited. 

She could watch cooking shows until her stomach started growling audibly, then get up and scarf down some of her chocolates (she actually started with the chocolate-covered strawberries, then remembered they weren't hers and switched to her own gift.) She could go back and flop on the couch -- sexily -- and channel-surf for a while, then get up and graze the leftovers in the fridge. She could get bored senseless and finally put on a Legend disc. It was the best way to summon Bunny home: start something she'd rather he not catch her doing. Not that watching a Legend disc was bad in any way, but watching a Legend disc in lingerie when you were about to seduce the hell out of your partner was a good way to get teased for _years._ It wasn't like she needed Legend to get her motor running! She needed Legend to save her from deadly boredom! It was nearly nine. Bunny was _hours_ late. 

Just to make the real target of her not-really-comfortable-at-all lingerie clear, she got up and retrieved that silly stuffed bunny she'd given him years ago, possibly or possibly not as a collaboration with all the other heroes. She was starting to get a bit chilly, but putting on a sweater or covering up with an afghan defeated the whole purpose of the lingerie. The ice was melting around the wine; she got up to replace that, too. She went back to the couch. The Legend disc ended. Maybe if she wasn't bored out of her skull she'd get thoughtful or maudlin about how her powers had gone just the way Legend's had; about how differently they'd handled it, about how a man she'd admired so much had, in the end, valued appearances over integrity.

Good thing she was bored out of her skull. 

She got herself a bottle of beer. _Welcome home, Bunny, to my sexy beer breath!_ She'd brush her teeth or something after she finished it. She sat cross-legged on the couch, trying to warm her feet under her knees, and nursed the beer for a good long while. What the hell was keeping him? It couldn't have been a call, could it? Her band hadn't gone off. Unless it was some kind of on-the-fly thing. He'd spotted a crime in progress and tried to stop it, maybe. 

Shit, what if he'd tried that and gotten hurt? She had ten years of experience with her old Top Mag suit, nothing but one thin layer of fabric between you and whatever you were up against. He'd always had armor, and it showed in the way he faced weapons and took risks. Should she call him? Should she put on a sweater and call him so he wouldn't see any trace of lingerie? 

She should finish her beer and stop freaking out. Bunny was more than able to take care of himself, and if he _had_ gotten hurt she'd get word pretty damn quickly; Agnes would call her, if nothing else. He was fine. She was just grouchy and letting her mind run wild because she'd thought he'd be home well before seven. 

Then her phone went off. A text: _Sorry, running late. Just now beginning photoshoot. Long story, tell you when I get home._

Well, crap. Photoshoots could run an hour, a couple of hours... felt like about ten years each time, but whatever. He'd probably roll in around eleven or midnight. 

Beer and boredom had made her sleepy. She had plenty of time for a nap.

* * *

She woke up to a gentle hand on her face. "Bwuh," she greeted him, then blinked him into focus. Bunny, of course. "Happy Valentine's," she mumbled, sitting up. Crap, she'd been drooling on the pillow. She was a sex _goddess._

"A few minutes late," Bunny said ruefully. "It's a little after midnight."

"Screw clocks," she said. "I bought this stuff and it's Valentine's till you rip it off me."

"Wouldn't you like to reuse it at a later date?"

"It's red! It's for one time a year." 

"If you say so. I don't think I'll tear anything, though. Princess carry?"

She considered him. "What kept you?"

"There was a call," he said. "About forty minutes after you burned your powers off at the photoshoot, so they didn't bother calling you. Then the arrest was a little tricky -- the suspect managed to cave in a building around himself, so we had to rescue him and get him to the hospital--"

"Never even occurred to me to just turn on Hero TV," she said. "Carry me to bed already. You can tell me the rest of it there."


End file.
